Bulatović began in 1956 with a book of short stories, Djavoli dolaze ("The Devils Are Coming", translated as Stop the Danube), for which he received the Serbian Writers Union Award. His novel The Red Rooster Flies Heavenwards, set in his homeland of northeastern Montenegro, was translated into more than twenty foreign languages. He then stopped publishing for a time, to protest against interference in his work.

His next novel, Hero on a Donkey, "A dark hot nightmare of a war novel...",[3] was first published abroad and only four years later (1967) in Yugoslavia.

In 1975, Bulatović won the NIN Award for novel of the year for People with Four Fingers, an insight into the émigré's life. The Fifth Finger was a sequel to that book. His last novel was Gullo Gullo, which brought together various themes from his previous books.[citation needed]